Stanislavski IN REHEARSAL

VASILI TOPORKOV

Translated and with an

lntroduction by Jean Benedetti

A Theatre Arts Book

ROUTLEDGE NEWYORK AND LONDON

48 Dead Souls

SECRETARY: What are you afraid of? One dies, another is born, everything fits. As they are declared as living in the official report, they must be alive.

CHICHIKOV: Ah ... SECRETARY:What? CHICHIKOV: Nothing. SECRETARY: Well then. Hand over the papers. (Exit) CHICHIKOV: Oh! I'm justa dumb idiot. I'm looking for what's right under

my nose! I huy all the people who have died before the next official census ... If I huy, say, a thousand and then mortgage them to the board at 200 roubles a head, I have a capital of 2oo,ooo. But you can­not huy or mortgage anything without land. (Inspired) But I huy them and move them. In Kherson they give you land free, provided you put people on it. I will move all the dead there. To Kherson, the lot of them! They can live there in peace. Now is the right time. Not long ago there was an epidemic, people died, thank God, many of them. I'll pretend to be looking for somewhere to live. and try to find any nook or cranny where I can huy the people I need without too much trou­ble and cheaply. First, I must go and see the Governor. It will be dif­ficult and wearisome. It is frightening to think what might happen because of this. Arrest, a public flogging and then Siberia. But man was given a brain for a reason. And the best thing is that no one will believe it. The whole thing is so unbelievable, no one will believe it. I amonmyway!

(Blackout)

After a series of catastrophes in his life, Chichikov is, once again, back where he started, but this time, apparently without a hope in the world. There's a noose around his neck. He has taken on a very doubtful busi­ness, mortgaging a totally ruined estate on which half the people are dead. To do that, he has to go through the Secretary to the Board of Guardians, a first-rate scoundrel who can't be twisted around anyone's little finger. Chichikov has already annoyed him by his persistence. The opportunities for bribery are becoming more and more limited. But a man who is threatened by total bankruptcy and poverty is ready for anything. So Chichikov tracks the Secretary like a bloodhound in the evening and finds him at the inn. He decides that it will be either death or glory.

Dead Souls \ 49

All this was discussed with Stanislavski as a starting point for Chichikov's behaviour in the Prologue.

'So, what would you do in the given circumstances?' '1 think that here Chichikov feels ... ' 'Don't think about that, think about what he does. So?' Pause. 'You have your fellow actor, Vsevolod Alekseevich, in front of you.

You need to get an important answer from him. Above all, try to be at ease with him. Look in his eyes and see what you can rely on, don't think, try to act instantly.'

After a few tries when something seemed to be happening, Stanislavski continued: 'But what if he refuses to listen to you and leaves? ... Vsevolod Alekseevich, leave, don't listen to him, don't pay him any attention and you, Toporkov, stop him, not with your hands, not with any kind of phys­ical force, but don't let him go. No, that way he will.'

'1 don't know what I'm supposed to do.' 'In life, if you really needed to stop him, you would, so why can't you

do it now? It couldn't be simpler. Do a very simple exercise. The task for one of you is suddenly to get up from your chair and go to that door, the task for the other is to nip his intention in the bud and stop him, pre­venting him from getting beyond a certain point. It's really very simple. But don't try to perform, be genuinely, naturally involved in what you are doing.'

1 knew this exercise from our previous work on The Embezzlers. 1 won't list all the subtleties of Stanislavski's teaching, as he tried to

get living, organic behaviour from me in this scene, 1 will only say that our work was long, painstaking and only concerned physical behaviour: how to hide near to the table so the other actor can't see you, but you can observe him, as you sit almost right behind him; how to stop him dead in his tracks, block his way to the door, and how to slip him the bribe so that nobody sees, etc., etc. We were not concerned with the script.

'Now you have learned to perform a sequence of physical actions. Put them together in an unbroken line and you have the pattern of physical actions for the Prologue. What, basically, must you be able to do? Wait in ambush and watch the other actor's tiniest movements. As soon as he tries to leave, stop him, skilfully block his way, gain his interest somehow, confuse him, muddle him, and slip him the bribe so that no one else sees. That is enough for the moment. This is the first part of the way and

J

i ,

\ \ 1

j

so Dead Souls

extremely important. Pind the way of doing it. If you need words, all right, but don't use the exact words in the script, only the thoughts they express. Don't do any acting, just behave. And not for us, but for the other actor. Use him to check whether your behaviour is right.'

In the second half of the Prologue leading to Chichikov's long speech that begins 'Oh! I'm justa dumb idiot',Stanislavski once again discov­ered a sequence of physical actions, despite the fact that all Chichikov does, apparently, is sit at the table and say his lines.

'This is not a speech, it is dialogue. There is a fierce debate between reason and feeling. Distinguish between the two. One is in the head, the other somewhere in the solar plexus. Let them speak to each other. Depending on who gets the upper hand, Chichikov either tries to jump up from the table and run away before anyone realises he is going to carry out his plan, or he uses all his strength to make himself stay sitting where he is, at the table. You're aware, you understand these impulses to action, so try to act them out.'

Por the time being, everything revolved around pure physical action. We used various approaches in studying them and perfecting them, and the array of actions was significantly greater and more varied than in our work on The Embezzlers. Work sometimes took the forro of entertain­ing garues, sometimes of exercises, sometimes of classes where we worked on the elements of the simplest physical actions and where Stanislavski turned into the most pedantic, niggling teacher, and sometimes by nar­rating the whole sequence of the characters' behaviour in the Prologue. This work continued until such time as we had performed the task we had been set more or less satisfactorily, and we could narrate and per­form the pattern of physical actions with ease.

At that time 1 still had not grasped the full significance of this type of work. 1 didn't know the meaning of Stanislavski's secret, that by truth­fully performing physical actions and following their logic and sequence you can achieve the most complex feelings and experiences, those qual­ities which we had tried unsuccessfully to achieve in the first period of our work. Por the moment, neither Stanislavski nor the cast spoke or thought of anything above the ordinary. We worked on solving the sim­plest dramatic problems and tried to work them out as perfectly as pos­sible. And almost imperceptibly, step by step, we carne to the moment when we needed the author's script, when we wanted to speak it. And there 1 was standing in front of the Secretary saying: 'As you wish, Excel­lency, but 1 am not leaving here until 1 get an answer.'

Dead Souls 5 r

Suddenly a few claps and Stanislavski's gentle, apologetic voice: '1 am so very sorry, but 1 don't understand what it was yo u said.'

'As you wish, Excellency, but 1 am not leaving here until 1 get an answer.'

'What's that? "As you wish"?' 'As you wish, Excellency, but 1 am not leaving here ... ' 'No, I'm sorry, forgive me, 1 just don't understand ... Hm ... hm ...

perhaps it's my ears. I'm beginning to be hard of hearing.' He turned to his assistants. 'What does it say in the script?' The assistants tried to say the line with the utmost clarity but Stanislavski stilllooked blank. 1 even began to feel sorry for him and, using the most delicate vocal nuances, very expressively 1 said: 'As you wish, Excellency, but 1 am not leaving here until 1 get an answer.'

'Now 1 understand. Speak that clearly to the Secretary. You have to convince someone who doesn't want to listen to you. You see how dynamic you have to be in all your actions? So, go on.'

1 repeated the line. 'That was awful! You're stressing every word. "As you wish, Excel­

lency, but 1 am not leaving here until I get an answer." The sentence i"J loses any kind of action. The sense would be clearer if the line, how­

ever long it may be, only had one stress. That's how you said the line to me just now. Why was that? Because you had a real wish for me to understand what you were thinking, but now you've started playact­ing, not behaving. Do it again, please. Awful! ... Where's the stress in the line? "Anatomise" the sentence. Which is the one word you can't do without to express what you want from the man you are talking to? Or what is the one single word in this scene that will make you understood?

'What are you asking him for? What must he doto satisfy you? It's in the line! What are you thinking about? You say you won't leave this place until ... what?'

'Until 1 get ... ' 'And?' 'An answer.' 'Yes, that's the important stress word. So give the sentence one single

stress on that word.' 1 spoke the line trying to give just one stress.

52 Dead Souls

'Why are you running all the other words into one? You mustn't rush them or squash them all together, just don't stress them. So!'

1 say the line again. 'Why do you hit the last word like that?' '"Hit"?' 'Why do you hit "answer" ?' 'But that's where the stress is!' 'But you don't have to hit it so hard. All you have to do is not stress

the other words and then it will be a natural stress. So!' Often, when the 'uninitiated' were present at highly difficult moments

in Stanislavski's rehearsals, it seemed to them that this was all overdone, that it was actors going too far again. You can't harry people like that. And then, where is personal creativity? Worrying an actor likethat can't do any good, it can only muddle him. Indeed, after working for two or three hours on one sentence you usually feel you've stopped understand­ing what the words mean. But it is only temporary. Afterwards, the mean­ing of the sentence and the words becomes very clear and having gone through this 'purifying fire' you feel a particular respect for a line that cost you so much effort. You don't gabble it, you don't overload it with unnecessary stresses, you don't 'hit' it so hard. It is real for you, musical.

Can an actor be individually so self-demanding? Can he work that relentlessly on perfecting his technique? No, since he cannot see or hear himself or recognise his faults. The bad habits that have built up over the years stick fast. He needs great patience, courage and the help of an outside person who understands the laws of the creative process. That is why we never complained when Stanislavski was so extremely exact­ing in rehearsals. The cultural ethos of the Moscow Art Theatre would never have come into being if the actors had not undergone his rigorous training.

But, to return to the rehearsals. Stanislavski considered action to be the sole, the indisputable basis of acting. He ruthlessly excluded every­thing else.

'Why are you doing that? What does it contribute to the through­action? Anything that does not lead to the accomplishment of our goal, the supertask, is superfluous. Every physical action must be dynamic, and lead to the accomplishment of sorne goal or other, and that includes every line yo u speak on stage.' He often added the dictum: 'Then your words will not be empty or your silences mute.'

Stanislavski had many ways of teaching us how to mobilise words and

84 Dead Souls

Stanislavski had prepared the ground and suddenly changed from a landowner into a director and began to watch us closely.

1 went up to Petker and he quickly jumped up and ran away. 'Hm! ... Hm! ... You're acting, Petker. You only need go a few steps

away ... Now, Toporkov, go up to him again. Hm! ... still "acting". Chichikov will understand at once that you're afraid of him, so you must only do what is necessary to get out of danger.'

Gradually Petker and 1 began to talk, improvising at first in our own words and then went on to the script. Every time our conversation began to look like acting and stopped being human, Stanislavski interrupted us. Again and again, he brought us back to truth.

'Yqu don't need acting. You just have to listen and work out where your conversation with Chichikov is leading. All 1 need is for you to concentrate ... Try to guess why this uninvited guest has arrived. Now, ask him to sit clown ... No, not like that, he could stick a knife in you ... No, not like that either ... find a more easy way ... and less dangerous.'

Step by step, he dug living responses out of the actor and cleared away everything that was histrionic, routine and stagy. He even got rid of Petker's usual 'old man' acting, anda living face appeared, with wary, mistrustful eyes. 1 responded to him as 1 should and we both began to sense a bond of mutual interest between us. 1 began very carefully to state my business. He listened to me, trying to see what it was really about.

We felt good. The tiny audience listened to our conversation and watched its course.

There carne the moment when Petker, as Plyushkin, fully appreciated the favour Chichikov wanted to grant him, and after my line, 'Out of respect for you 1 will take the cost of the purchase on myself', his face lit up. He was silent for a long while and looked at me in amazement. Our audience waited with great interest for what was to follow. Petker's face twitched convulsively. Up to this point Stanislavski had been sitting in silence, trying not to interrupt the scene which was now on the right track. Now he carefully suggested:

'Now yo u can overact, overact with your face, overact as much as yo u like. You've won the right to. Screw it up as much as you can, stick your tongue out ... more ... more ... Don't be afraid ... Yes!'

He gave a happy laugh as he spoke and everyone else laughed, too. With that, he ended the rehearsal.

Dead Souls 8 5

'That was very good ... yo u understand how carefully yo u ha veto feel your way into a role, carefully spin fine threads together and not break what you have woven? They will then forma strong rope of their own accord, which will be difficult to break. Go on working, don't force any­thing, cautiously make your starting point the most simple, living, organic actions. Don't think about the character. The character will emerge as a result of your performing truthful actions in the given circumstances. You have just seen, in this example, how you can build a pathway by going from one small truth to another, testing yourself out, releasing your imag­ination and so achieve a vivid, expressive character. Go on working in that spirit. Do you understand what you have todo?' he said, turning to the co-directors. 'Come back and show me a little la ter.'

But we never, in fact, had an opportunity to show the scene to Stani­slavski again. He was busy with other things. Once he telephoned me and asked how Petker was doing in his role. We talked for two hours. The enormous interest he had in the role and the new actor was evident. 1 found it difficult to answer because my position was very delicate. If you reassured him, he stopped believing you and started asking tricky ques­tions to catch you out, like a police inspector, but if you talked about mis­takes or what had gone wrong, you were 'selling out' a friend and needlessly upsetting Stanislavski.

1 was as evasive as 1 could be. In reply to a worrying question about the problem of age, 1 overdid it: 'Oh, don't worry about that ... Petker is dealing with that problem splendidly ... it's amazing how he manages to show a very, very old, sick man.'

'Hm! ... Hm! ... if he is being ill, that's terrible ... What does ill mean? Mentally ill? That's of no interest whatsoever. The idea here is that Plyushkin has a mania for hoarding. So will Chichikov when he is old. Plyushkin's joints are stiff, he can't stand up or sit clown easily, his sight is poor ... that's all ... but for the rest he is perfectly healthy and nor­mal.'

'Let us come and see yo u, we would like to show yo u the scene again.' '1'11 try, but you see, there.'s no time, 1 have other things ... 1 don't

know whether 1 can. But do please call me and tell me what's happening ... And don't ... hide things ... Hm ... Hm ... Will you have a candid chat with me ... Ah?'

'Of course.' 'Goodbye.'

90 Dead Souls

- Who said they were living? You pay taxes for them but I will relieve you of all the bother and the payments and I will give you fifteen roubles into the bargain. You understand?

- Truly, little father, I can't get it into my head ...

I see Lilina's bright eyes. Sometimes they fix greedily on me, sorne­times they glide over the money. I wait for their answer. I don't need words, I can see they are full of doubt.

- You see, little mother (I try to explain), it's money, money, and that doesn't grow on trees ... How much did you sell your honey for? That sin is on your conscience, little mother.

Lilina is living Korobochka's thoughts so truthfully, I can tell her intentions without her lines.

- Fine, but that was honey ... honey. There's nothing really to sell here, so I'll give you fifteen not twenty roubles for nothing, and not in coin but in banknotes.

I see a glimmer of understandin~_Lílina's eyes, the business will go well, but suddenly:

- No, I'm still afraid of making a loss ...

The spring unwound with a snap. I sat clown opposite Lilina and, in silence, began to look at her, trying to work out what was the best approach. To my surprise I heard laughter from the people who were watching. Paying no attention, I once more started to work on Korobochka. But hardly had I fixed my eyes on her and prepared to clinch the business than I almost burst out laughing when I saw Lilina trans­formed into Gogol's comic old woman, the landowner Korobochka. Her eyes were fixed on me, a little confused but full of curiosity. They expressed such impenetrable stupidity, and they took me, my actions, my thoughts so seriously that I had to make a great effort to get a hold on myself and take the matter as seriously as she did.

The rest of the scene went like clockwork. We asked each other ques­tions, tried to guess each other's thoughts and intentions, trick each other, frighten each other, convince each other, induce pity, we furiously attacked

Dead Souls 9 r

each other, drew back, rested and started the battle all over again. In all our actions, there was logic, purpose, a conviction of the importance of what we were doing and a concentration on each other. We didn't think about the audience. We were not in the least interested in whether we were acting well or not. We were doing what we were doing. 1 had to make the incomprehensible mechanism in Korobochka's head work at any cost. That was my sole purpose. We didn't do anything special. It was all very simple, with no comedy tricks and yet the little audience, and Stanislavski, fell on the floor laughing. Stanislavski was almost ill. 1 think, at that moment, we were very near to Gogol. lt was the kind of grotesque even Stanislavski could not reject.

'What did we have here?' asked Stanislavski at the end of the rehearsal. 'You were carried away by an upsurge of intuition, and played the scene extremely well. Intuition is the most valuable thing in the arts. Without it they do not exist. You will never be able to play the scene that way again. You may play worse, you may play better but you won't play what you did just now again. Try to repeat it, and it won't work. You can't pin it clown permanently. You can only pin clown the way that led to that result. 1 gave you a hard time, Toporkov, so you would find a sense of truth in the simplest physical actions. That is the way to arouse your intuition. 1 drove you along the path of simple logic, sequence, of gen­uine, human communication. Once you were aware of the logic of your behaviour, you believed in your actions and the stage was genuinely alive.

1 We control this logic, we can fix it, understand it and it is the path to intu­, ition. Study this path, think of nothing else and the results will follow. 1 helped Toporkov to take his first steps, then he made his own way, with­out any help.'

'And Lilina?' 'Lilina simply began to take an interest in our work, the process of

gradually bringing Toporkov to life. Once she became interested, she began to pay real attention to him and that means genuine concen~ration on the object. We cleared away all the obstacles, freed her frob her chains, and led her towards living communication with a living person. Each had an effect on the other, they sparked each other off, and you saw the quality of the result.'

It was clear to me why Stanislavski had only concentrated on me and completely ignored Lilina in this rehearsal when, essentially, it had been called for her. This was a particular way to get to a particular actress.

Much later, in a rehearsal for Tartuffe, Stanislavski said:

f

92 Dead Souls

'Many people know the system, but very few can apply it. I, Stani­slavski, know the system but I still can't, or rather, I'm still just starting to apply it. If you want to master the system I have developed, you must be born again, and live until yo u are sixty and start acting all over again.'

This thought which Stanislavski expre~sed is a final answer to all those who propound the system, whether they accept it or reject it.

The Council

In the play there is a scene called 'The Council Scene': the frightened and daunted officials gather at the Prosecutor's house for a 'council' meeting to discuss the scandalous rumours about Chichikov that are running all over the town. They could have dire consequences. I was not in that scene, except for one line, spoken outside the door, and so had the oppor­tunity to watch all the subtlety of Stanislavski's directing from the wings. This may well be the best scene in the play, its high point. Here the true character of all those involved in Chichikov's weird, incomprehensible scheme with the dead souls was revealed. This comparatively small but vivid scene had been brilliantly put together by the adaptor, Bulgakov. All Gogol's most piquant ideas and situations are concentrated in it. In our preliminary work on the play we had tended to overdo everything and, in this scene, Sakhnovski and Telesheva had gone all out to find the extreme and the grotesque in all its forms. They wanted to out-Gogol Gogol. But no matter how much they tried, no matter how many clever ideas they had, not one of them worked, they merely tired the actors out. What, in Gogol's original, rang out as convincing, truthful and typically mordant, just seemed extremely overdone in performance. Outside, it was supposed to be hard-edged, but inside it was cold, empty and uncon­vincing. The actors did not believe anything they were doing on stage.

When Stanislavski started work on the council scene, the first thing he did was to call the exaggerated, externa! methods we had applied into doubt. He indicated their lack of logic.

'Why do you pull such faces when you come into the room?' 'We're terrified. We've been scared by recent events.' 'You can't play terror ... you have to save yourself from danger, but

the danger isn't in here, it's out there, where you just carne from. You're at home in this room, but you're still looking afraid of something. You have no logic. Instead of relief, you're trying to "act" terror, and what

~. Tartuffe

and sooner than you think, it will decline, turn to nothing and our the­atre will sink below the level of the usual hack theatres. Definitely lower, because those theatres at least have solidly learned, standard techniques, an established tradition handed clown from generation to generation. All this maintains them at a certain level, with a certain quality. Our kind of theatre is fragile and if those who create it don't take constant care of it, don't keep moving it forward, do not develop and perfect it, it will soon die.

'Mastering this technique should be the concern of our whole theatre, all the actors and directors. Our art is an ensemble art. Brilliant individ­ual actors in a show are not enough. We have to think of a performance as a harmonious union of all the elements into a single artistic creation.

'As I depart this life, I want to pass the fundamentals of this technique on to you. They cannot be conveyed by words or writing. They must be studied practically. If we achieve good results and you understand this technique you will be able to spread it and develop it further.

'I'll give you a short cut. Basically, the "system" has five to ten rules which will enable you to find the right path in all your roles all your life.

'Remember, every good, self-demanding actor must at certain inter­vals (four or five years), go back to school. He also has to place his voice-it changes with time-and clean away the dirt, the bad habits he has acquired, like displays of charm, conceit, etc., etc. He must widen his culture and his learning and after five or six years, go back to school for six months or more.

'Do you understand the nature of the task that lies befare you? I say again, don't think about a show of any kind, only about study and then more study. If you agree to that, let's start; if not, let's part without any kind of rancour. You'll go to the theatre and get on with your work and I'll form another group and do what I consider to be my duty.'

Work then began. Kedrov was initially in charge under Stanislavski's supervision. It had a very special character. But I'll come to that later.

As everyone knows, for Stanislavski the theatre's future lay in devel­oping and consolidating the realism in which it had its origins. Only con­scious realism which truthfully reflects 'the life of the human spirit' is the proper means to touch and educate an audience. Stanislavski found vivid, genuinely organic ways of giving physical form to his radically real­istic ideas. For that, he had to lead the actor back to life itself, and clear

Tartuffe ro7

away the battery of theatrical tricks and clichés which obscured his real human self from the audience.

'When you are rehearsing; Stanislavski said, 'first, you must start with yourself and who you are; second, you must obey the laws of creativity; third, you must bow to another person's logic, that is to the character as a human being. 1 can't play any role if 1 have not thoroughly cleaned the Augean stables of my mind of all its old clichés.'

Stanislavski was searching for a superior form of realistic acting, a further development of the traditions of Russian theatre, one that was much improved, forward-looking and persuasive.

Once he has accepted someone else's logic and made it flesh and blood on stage, an actor's behaviour becomes genuine but at the same time he lives his own feelings; he smells, listens, sees with all the refinement of his own organs and nerves, his actions are genuine, he doesn't playact or rep­resent them. t 'Real acting begins; said Stanislavski, 'when there is no character as

. yet, but an "1" in the hypothetical circumstances. If that is not the case, you lose contact with yourself, you see the role from the outside, you copy it. When you use the system properly, you may act well, you may act badly, but you won't "act" well, which is the case, say, with Coquelin. 3

"'Acting" well is a very difficult art. It requires a great deal of time, effort, patience and precision, but it is something which we cannot do and, indeed, do not like doing. And that is all to our good, since Coquelin only makes an impression on you while he is acting, whereas Ermolova4

beco mes part of your life, your soul.' Stanislavski inspired his actors and gave them the ability to experi­

ence dramatic events afresh, first-hand each time. 'My method is to get involved with the feelings 1 have today. Here,

today, now, 1 will say, punish Chichikov, 1 will arrest him, etc. You have been complimented on a certain moment in a role, on a gesture, a line­reading. Don't get too fond of them, don't hang on to them, replace them with something better and avoid their becoming clichés. Take a sponge and wipe them out.'

3 Constant Coquelin (1841-1909), celebrated French actor, author of The Art of the Actor, in which he advocated a purely technical, externa! approach to the creation of character. 4 Maria Nikolayeva Ermolova (185 3-1928), leading actress at the Mal y Theatre, greatly admired by Stanislavski, whose work she enthusiastically supported.

i (!

rro Tartuffe

Since he considered nature and her workings to be the decisive force in an actor's creative work, Stanislavski created a system for reaching her. He never overlooked the elements of physical behaviour in creating a character. Even when we were working on The Embezzlers, 1 remember how often he drew our attention to the importance of control, clarity and polish even in the most insignificant physical action. It was the same to a greater extent with Dead Souls. 1 have described that earlier. In the last period of his career, in his work on Tartuffe, Stanislavski considered this element as supremely important.

One must not think, however, that he thought of physical action and other directoria! techniques as ends in themselves, as has often been the case with sorne of his less talented followers. Every technical device Stani­slavski used as a director was only secondary to achieving his principal object-the fullest possible physical presentation of the concept of a char­acter. And the choice of physical action and the hypothetical circum­stances, etc., were always a means to an end.

lt would equally be mistaken to see physical action as no more than expressive movement representing action. No, it is genuine, properly goal­directed, justified action, which, at the moment it is being performed, becomes psychophysical.

When he was working with us, Stanislavski invariably prefaced his remarks with the words:

'So, what sequence of physical action do we have here?' That meant that the scene had to be translated into the language of

physical action, and the simpler the action, the better. For example, the crucial scene between Tartuffe and Elmire, with its alternating long speeches, was reduced to the simplest physical actions. With barely per­ceptible signs of encouragement, Elmire managed to get Tartuffe to make a false move, and fall into a trap.

'How will you do this? 1 don't need the dialogue for the moment. Work out a pattern of actions, how you willlure Tartuffe into your net, how you will deal with his feeble advances. And you: he said to Kedrov, who was playing Tartuffe, 'in your turn, decide, here, now, today what behaviour would be appropriate towards Elmire, who is mistress of the house, and a woman of rank.

'Or, let us take another scene where Orgon is looking for Marianne so he can force her to sign a marriage contract, while Elmire, Cléante and Dorine oppose it. What sort of physical action is there in this scene?

Tartuffe I I I

'Don't talk tome about feeling, you cannot set feeling. You can only recall and set physical action. In this particular case we can define the physical action with the verb "to hide". You must hide Marianne from her cruel father. That's what you have todo. So, how? If you use the usual actors' clichés, you will hide her by putting out your hands behind your back and looking anxious, etc., but if you are creative, I don't know how yo u will do it. But the main thing is "to hide" her.'

He absolutely forbade us to learn the lines. That was an absolute con­dition of our work and if, suddenly, one of us began to speak Moliere's words he immediately stopped the rehearsal. He considered it a kind of impotence in an actor, if he clung to the script, the words, the author's exact words. He considered it a great achievement if an actor could demonstrate the pattern of physical actions in a scene with the mínimum of words. Words were to play only an ancillary role.

He absolutely forbade us to use the methods of work that were usual in other theatres. There was no place in our rehearsals for learning the lines by heart or setting the moves. The script was used exclusively to define what the sequence of physical actions was.

Stanislavski told us repeatedly: 'No script, no moves, just know what your scene is about, act out the

pattern of physical actions and the role is thirty-five per cent yours already. First, you have to establish the logical sequence of your actions. That's how you prepare.

'Befare a painter can move on to the more subtle, complex psycho­logical elements in his picture, he must sketch his ideas on to the canvas and make his subjects "sit", "stand" or "lie clown" in such a way we can believe they are actually "sitting", "standing" or "lying clown". That is the layout of the picture he will paint. No matter what subtleties he includes in it, if the pose breaks the laws of nature, if there is no truth in it, if the person he has represented as sitting is not really "sitting", no other sub­tleties will make it successful.

'The sequence of physical actions has the same importance in the art of acting. The actor, like the painter, must make his subject "sit", "stand" or "lie clown". But we have a complicating factor: we are both artist and subject and we need to find not a static pose but a living, active person in a wide variety of circumstances. And the actor must not think of any­thing else until he can create and sketch in this pattern, and can believe in the truth of his physical behaviour in that pattern.'

II 2 Tartuffe

In the final phase of his experiments, Stanislavski attached the high­est significance to the work of creating the pattern of physical actions in a role.

'When we are working on a role; he said, 'we must first make the sequence of physical actions firmer and stronger. It is even useful to write t~~n clown~ 9econd, we must disco ver their nature. Third, we must be audacious, not think, do. Once you start todo something, you will feel the need to justify it.'

If he works along these lines, an actor can genuinely get closer to the kind of acting which Stanislavski called the art of experiencing, as opposed to the art of representation. Genuine, human behaviour, sin­cerity of experiencing, that is to say, those qualities which are the most truly persuasive in the theatre, which hook an audience and influence their hearts and minds, are the qualities and the art that are personal to great artists and are an example to us.

'You can't master a role right away. There is always something in it you don't understand clearly, something that resists you. So start with what is clearest, most accessible, that is easy to set. Try to discover the truth of the simplest physical actions which are obvious to you. The truth of physical actions willlead you to belief and then to the "1 am being" and finally to a flood of creative action. I'm opening the gates to artistic creation for yo u.'

The method of physical action enables the actor who follows it to achieve belief and a deeper level of experience and feeling. It provides a shorter way to creating a character. At the same time, it is a method of preserving and developing a character that has been created.

'If the sequence of physical actions follows your own personal cir­cumstances in life, if it bears your personal imprint, then there is noth­ing to worry about if your feelings dry up. Go back to the physical actions and they will restare your lost feelings.'

But physical actions not only point the actor in the right direction when creating a character, they are his best means of expression. And so it was no accident that Stanislavski defined the actor as a master of phys­ical actions. Nothing so clearly and so persuasively conveys a person's mental state than his physical behaviour, that is, a whole series of phys­ical actions. It was not for nothing__that great actors often had recourse to them. When we remembei--the individual theatrical successes Ermolova, Savina, Davydov and Dalmatov had, then in most cases we say: 'Do you remember when they said this or that to her, and how

Tartuffe r r 3

nervously she removed her gloves and threw them on the sofa and went to the table!'

Or: 'Do you remember when her husband wanted to put his cigar butt in

the ashtray, and her lover's cigar was already in it, and how she quickly changed it for another?'

'Do you remember how Duse acted with the mirror in the last act of La Dame aux Camélias?'

Countless examples could be invoked. Davydov, who was a master of the word, a real virtuoso, nonetheless always crowned the climax of each of his roles with a 'grand' pause, in which with justa few words, or even without any at all, he expressed his character's secret feeling with the utmost clarity through a series of subtly conceived, riveting physical actions and it was only at that precise moment that his real nature was revealed to the audience.

r 'The workings of our five senses can be broken clown into the tiniest.' : l J/ physical actions, so write them clown and use them as a quick reminder;

Stanislavski said at one rehearsal. Since he considered physical actions as the prime element in theatri­

cal expression, Stanislavski was always extremely demanding with his actors when they were using them. He always demanded clarity and skill in their execution. He tried to achieve, if we may so express it, good 'dic-

. ~ physical actions. He, therefore, recommended that we turn our attent10n to exercises with imaginary objects, which should be part of an actor's daily 'clean-up'. Exercises with imaginary objects develop con­centration, an essential quality in acting. Each time he repeats these exer­cises, an actor makes them more and more complicated, he divides them into very small sections and so develops the 'diction' of physical actions.

Signing a piece of paper may seem like a single action, but for the actor who is a true artist, it may be one hundred and one actions, accord­ing to the circumstances. The act of signing a piece of paper may have no meaning in itself, and superfluous details in such a simple action may irritate. But, on other occasions, it can be the most significant moment in a role and then he will need a hundred and one or more nuances to perform this basically simple action.

1 repeat, in the last work he did with actors, Stanislavski placed the greatest importance on the method which he defined as the method of physical actions. 'Nobody really knows this technique which 1 have devel­oped. But you must work towards it; he said in rehearsal.

r 22 Tartuffe

Stanislavski stopped us at the height of the game. 'This is no longer theatre. This is genuine, real-life action, full of con­

centration and commitment. That's what 1 need in this scene. You didn't perform it, but, after today's game, you now understand what lies behind these people's physical behaviour. You must believe in what yo u have just done, how you behaved, and try to find the same concentration, dynamism, truth, rhythm, everything that happened as a result of your involvement with the episode, in all later rehearsals. Don't think about the audience, there isn't one, it does not existas far as you are concerned and the more completely you do that, the more attention it will pay to your actions, as we did just now. That is a law of the theatre.'

After these remarks, Stanislavski turned to the directors and said: 'Did you see how remarkably varied and unexpected the staging was

during this game? You can't plan that in advance. It would be good if we could do it afresh each time. My dream is a performance in which the actors don't know which of the four sides the audience is on.'

Taking his leave, Stanislavski requested each of us to believe in, to prize everything that had happened in the rehearsal, and to try and per­fect what we had discovered in the future.

'Bear in mind,' he said, 'that you cannot recall and set feelings, you can only recall a sequence of physical actions, make it strong, give it all the smoothness of habit. When you rehearse this scene, start with the simplest physical actions, perform them absolutely truthfully, look for truth in every detail. In this way you will achieve belief in yourself and what you are doing. Take·-~ccount of everything that relates to your actions, especia¡Uy rhythm,which, like everything else, is the result of the ~iven circumstances of one kind or another. We know how ter perform

·. simple physical actions, but depending on the given circumstances, these physical actions become psychophysical.'

The rehearsals for Tartuffe, which had begun with what seemed like abstract exercises and various elements of acting technique, grew imperceptibly closer to Moliere's play. We went on doing daily exer­cises and improvisations as a kind of preparatory cleaning-up process.

Our rehearsals had their own special character, but when he talked to us, Stanislavski sometimes touched on subjects he had previously avoided. True, when this happened, he quickly realised what he was doing, and tried to relate everything to the task he had set himself as a teacher, and so limit us to our attempts to look to the future.